Fear Beyond Itself
by DreamersDae
Summary: Arthur is beating Alfred. And what does Alfred do? Nothing. He can't. He has no more power left. Rated M for violence.


Fear Beyond Itself

Another blow to the head rendered Alfred helpless and in critical pain. His breathing was labored and slow, he could barely hold himself up. His body wrenched and coughed out painfully. When he opened his eyes, he saw a spot of blood on the floor.

He tried to speak, but his body only revolted against him and made the small act of voicing words impossible and absolute torture. But he still tried, no matter how many times the only thing he could gather was a violent fit of coughing and gagging. He kept trying.

* * *

Arthur glared pointedly at the poor sight below him. The idiot was trying to speak. Even when his body protested and writhed at every attempt, he kept forcing himself to try.

Fool! Why must he provoke what will only bring more suffering?! More punishment! Can he not see he is fighting a losing battle? No- a lost battle. The boy lost the war ages go and yet he still pushed himself forward in a lame struggle to rebel against his master. His teacher. His _father_.

It angered Arthur to no end. It caused him internal hell fire.

He clenched his fists into tight balls. His body began to shake, not with fear, not with cold, with unadulterated rage. His cheeks burnt red and his eyes… his green eyes grew hard and dangerous.

* * *

The downed blonde sensed the sudden change in the air. Twice as bad as it was a minutes ago. Worse.

From the corner of his eye, Alfred saw movement and instinctively flinched away. He cowered and curled into himself as a sign of submission. A small, barely audible whimper escaped from his quivering lips.

He swallowed, and with all the stupidity and strength he had left, he spoke aloud. "Ar… Arthur- AH!" Arthur kicked him in the gut. Hard. Alfred went into another fit of coughing and spluttered violently. He felt like throwing up, but nothing came out but empty air.

* * *

Hurt him.

Break him.

Beat him until there's nothing left but a broken shell!

Green eyes seemed to glow in the dark room. They were filled with hurt and hatred. Hurt because Alfred kept trying to fight back and reason with Arthur somehow. Hatred because the damned bastard just doesn't know when to keep his damn mouth shut!

The Brit knelt down and grabbed the boy by his collar. Alfred hanged limply under him, his head lolled back and to the side. A trickle of blood ran from his mouth.

The boy was a mess. Hair a skewed and unwashed, clothes filthy and torn, covered in bruises old and new; black, purple, blue, yellow. It was disgusting. But Arthur guessed that's what happens when you're constantly asking to be beaten and have been locked in a room for God-knows-how-long with no bath or sunlight to help make things any better. At least the boy was fed. Well, forced fed anyways.

* * *

Alfred's eyes were closed; he didn't have the will to keep them open. All his strength, his nation strength, had seeped out of him a long time ago. His breathing was broken and uneven, and his body ached miserably. He hated it so, so much.

Again, he opened his mouth slightly and through painful effort, spoke despite the sure possibility of more blows to come. "Arthur… please-!"

The sound slap made was so loud and piercing. If anyone else was in the room with them, he or she would've flinched as though they were the ones being hit. And that was only Arthur holding back.

* * *

"Why?" He said, "Why do you keep trying? Don't you have a single clue that it'll never work? That you will never win?" Tears formed in the corners of Arthur's eyes. They weren't sorrowful. "I'm trying to keep you safe, and all you do as a thank you is rebel towards me. I don't understand. It's killing me from the inside Alfred. My bosses are thinking, talking, about completely destroying you and your people and bring it under total English rule. I'm trying to stop that. Trying to protect you. But how am I suppose to do that when all I get is a disobedient brat?!"

His only response was more coughing and some drops of blood on the floor. Alfred rasped and weakly lifted his hand up to Arthur's and gripped it with no real pressure. He just hanged on.

The younger blonde opened his eye lids, only half way though, and glared up at the former pirate. Arthur glared back, his cheeks already tear stained and more droplets kept spilling out. But the Brit's eyes stayed hard and deadly. If the boy went on with his charade he would have to fix it. Today. Permanently.

* * *

Bright sky-blue clashed with poisonous green. After all those previous beatings, Alfred's eyes still held onto that fighting spirit he always carried with him. He was not going to back down from this monster. He was not going to let it win over him.

Hoarsely, he said what might have caused the creature's breaking point. "G-go to… go to hell…"

* * *

Something inside Arthur twisted, bent and snapped. If he weren't fueled by previous anger, he would've fell to the ground in a shaky, sobbing mess. Except, that anger grew beyond recognition into a tangle of emotions and thoughts. Arthur's lips drew up to a snarl. No sound came out.

When he did speak, it was a dangerous calm voice. "I believe a bath is in order."

Quickly, harshly, Arthur grabbed a fistful of the boy's hair, drew him up to a standing position and dragged the gasping and screaming body behind him.

Two hands weakly gripped Arthur's clenched fist and tried to pry him off. It was useless. The enraged blonde had a death grip on the idiot's head. There was no escaping what he had coming to him.

* * *

Alfred tried desperately to break free. He squirmed and attempted to hurt the monster's arm, he even tried to play the dead weight trick. But it work. Nothing worked. He could not escape the English beast.

There was one way, though. But that would mean to give up and submit to its terms. He can't allow himself to do that; no to the creature. Then again, if he didn't, it could mean his life, and not just his life: the lives of his people as well. His home, his land, would be torn apart until nothing is left but a wasteland.

He had to beg.

No matter how much he'll hate himself for it.

He just had to… to the Beast

"Arthur- Arthur please! P-please stop! Y-you're hurting me, Ar-Arth-!" Alfred gasped and cried out when the monster tugged at his scalp forcefully. It didn't want to hear it. It was too far gone. Alfred kept begging anyways.

* * *

Unbelievable.

Intolerable.

The little bastard was begging for mercy!

Of all things! He dared do it now?! Now that he knew his punishment will be much worse? Inconceivable.

It was not going to work. Not on Arthur. Not anymore. He was not himself right now. He dad let go of everything reasonable and was acting totally through impulse.

Arthur dragged the pitiful thing out of his room for the first time in what might have been his first in weeks. Maybe months. He lost count after the third week.

* * *

The light stung Alfred's eyes. He cringed and tried to back away, back into the dark room. For the first time, he actually preferred the darkness and isolation of the empty hell hole rather than be out in the light. He was just tugged and forced out; tears leaking out like a river.

Screaming.

Pleading.

* * *

Arthur's ears zoned out everything the boy said. He was not going to be moved.

He led him down a hallway and opened a door to a bare bathroom. He swung his arm and threw the younger blonde against a corner. The boy cried out in pain and weakly curled into himself. He was sobbing uncontrollably, wheezing. And yet he still begged Arthur to stop and have some sense.

Hmph. Arthur would laugh if he could just at the mere thought of the word.

As soon as the Brit threw the boy off to the side, he quickly closed and locked the door. He began to roll up his sleeves as he headed to the bathtub. It was full, just as he had instructed the servants before he ever visited the dark room. He always came out feeling drained. The water was warm to the touch, not exactly how Arthur would've wanted it, but it would have to do.

* * *

The pain inside his head was agonizing, Alfred couldn't believe he was still conscious at all. He wished he could fall asleep and wake up back in his childhood, where the Beast was once a man he could trust and look up to and depend on for anything, including the thunder storms… He wished for his dad.

His tears never faltered. "Arthur, please. I-I'm sorry! I didn't mean is; I wasn't thinking. I c-couldn't think! It wasn't my fault! You just kept hurting me and locked me away in that room! I never meant it, Arthur! Please!"

The Beast attacked. "ENOUGH!" It, again, snatched Alfred by his aching hair and pushed him to the full tub. Momentarily, the celestial eyed blonde saw his reflection in its water. He was dirty, thin and ghostly, as if he could easily turn to ash and be swept away by a small breeze. But his eyes lost their light. He betrayed himself and his people. He could no longer consider himself the once proud hero; he was now only a small, weak boy.

Then, a hand gripped the back of his head and plunged Alfred into a small, warm lake.

* * *

Keep him steady.

Keep him from running away.

Arthur held the boy's head in the water with a single slip of the hand. The weakling on the other hand, flailed and struggled to breathe again. Arthur kept steady with his knee against his back and an iron grip on one of the boy's arms, holding it behind his back as it tensed, clenched and shook. His legs desperately pushed against the floor in vain.

Slowly, naturally, the boy's oxygen deprived body became weaker and sluggish. Now Arthur pulled his head back up.

* * *

Alfred gasped hungrily at the air around him, he spat out and choked on the water that managed to enter his throat and lungs. He was about to speak again when his head was yet again, splashed into the tub.

He remembered the last time he drowned. But the entire scenario was completely different compared to now. He was physically seven at the time, and he was having a snowball fight with his brother, Matthew… Little doe-eyed Mattie Bear. What happened to him?

It had snowed three days non-stop and the nearby lake was frozen over by a sheet of pale ice. Alfred ran towards the lake laughing gleefully, as he dodged away from Mathew's lightning fast snowballs. Though being the naïve boy he was, he did not stop at the lake's shore and kept on running until he was almost twenty yards from solid ground. The young Alfred stopped and panted, a wide grin planted on his face. When he looked back to the shore, he saw his brother frozen at the lake's edge, a snowball still in the quieter boy's hand. Matthew's usually wide eyes were wider as he looked down at Alfred's feet where the ice was beginning to crack under his weight. Lowly, as if not to disturb the breaking ice, little Matthew said, "A-Alfred… D-don't move."

As his pants started to slow and his breath turned into fog, Alfred furrowed his brow and squinted his eyes. "What?" he yelled back, and he stepped forward. First he heard a loud crack, then the world above the ice turned black and stung his face with cold.

* * *

Weak. So, so weak…

He didn't have to try now to keep the boy's head inside the tub. It felt as if Arthur were simply pushing a small kitten to the side.

His eyes stung with new tears, and his heart felt like there was a hand around it and it squeezed then squeezed again. Slowly, shakily, Arthur's hand moved away from the boy's head and he slumped down to the floor, his back pressed against the cool wall.

The boy, feeling Arthur's grip relent and slip, pushed himself from the tub and collapsed on the floor, coughing the water from his lungs, his body curling into himself.

Arthur stared blankly at the boy, slow rivulets paving noticeable streaks on his cheeks. He had almost done it. He almost killed the boy out of nothing but angry impulse. He could've done it. It was so, so easy. He was so close.

He heard the boy choke on his own coughs, his forehead flat on the wet floor. Arthur saw how gray the boy's eyes now were; they had lost their light. So, he was successful after all. He had broken America.

* * *

Young Alfred felt the warmth being sucked out of him by the cold like blood by a leech. He struggled and fought against it, but his enemy had completely surrounded him and had the upper hand in the boy's fight for his life.

Ever so slowly, Alfred's body weakened and his lungs filled with stinging cold. The darkness began to engulf him.

Despite the freezing waters taking away most of his sense, Alfred felt a hand grab hold of his arm and it pulled him away from the lake's black depths. Then he heard the sound of water spilling and splashing back into water. He was surrounded by white, it stung his eyes but it felt good.

He then felt a flat, hard surface under his back, and this was when he began to cough out the lake's black water and gasp for air. He heard a worried voice cry out his name, and the strong white light subsided to show him the outline of a man with short hair and thin shoulders. As his vision cleared, Alfred saw the man was blonde, emerald-eyes, and had pale skin. He was wet just like Alfred, his clothes soaked and hair heavy with cold water.

"Alfred?! Can you hear me, lad? Please answer me! You're back, son. You're not in the lake anymore. Alfred!" The man yelled frantically.

Alfred's lower lip began to quiver and his eyes glazed over with tears. He sobbed, "D-Daddy…?"

Arthur seemed to be washed with relief as soon as he heard that word slip from his son's throat. He hugged him tightly, offering Alfred his warmth. "I'm here," he said in a soft whisper. "Daddy's here."

The younger weakly grabbed hold of the elder's wet shirt. He sobbed freely and cried, taking as much comfort from his father's presence as he could. Two strong, thin arms wrapped around him and lifted him from the ground. Arthur walked towards his house quickly so Alfred may be warmed faster near a fire and changed into fresh clothes.

The entire time, Alfred kept on hearing the same words come from Arthur, "I'm here. Daddy's here. I love you, Alfred. I'll never let anything hurt you."


End file.
